Exhibition of the week Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Painted portraiture meets the identity games of Cindy Sherman in Yiadom-Boakye’s playful art depicting fictitious people. • Tate Britain, London, from 2 December until 9 May. Also showing Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace Lorenzo Lotto’s Portrait of Andrea Odoni, plus the Queen’s Rembrandts and Vermeers – a luxury assortment of royal treats. • Queen’s Gallery, London, from 4 December until 31 January. Jennifer Packer Paintings that explore race and representation in the US. • Serpentine Gallery, London, from 5 December until 14 March. Titian Instead of panic shopping before the November lockdown, I made a panic second visit to this exhibition, to feast on its opulent colours. Which is another way of saying: don’t miss it! • National Gallery, London, reopening from 2 December until 17 January. Linda McCartney Memory lane, adjacent to Penny Lane, revisited in McCartney’s evocative, intimate photographs. • Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, reopening 2 December until 10 January. Image of the week In the ongoing series White Hart Lane, British photographer Jack Smethers returned to Tottenham, the north London district where he spent his childhood. While researching the project he contacted local activist Hesketh Benoit, who promotes access to sport in a safe environment as an alternative to violence for the young people of Tottenham. Through Benoit, Smethers was introduced to basketball player Jaiden, a “sharp and talented young black man who is often overlooked in the media’s portrayal of inner city London youth”. His photograph, along with others, is in our gallery of Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait prize images, which focused on the way we’ve coped during Covid-19. What we learned Six artists shared the Jarman award for the moving image For the first time, all of the 2020 Taylor Wessing prizes were awarded to women The early paintings of Traci (not Tracey) Emin went on show Cardi B and Billie Eilish gave art to an auction for families of black women killed by police Melbourne’s proposed vast new contemporary art gallery gets its funding … … while the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney will close next month Ralph Steadman reflected on A Life in Ink A one-wheeled Banksy bike rolled away The Observer’s design magazine celebrated the best craft for Christmas and other design news Great British Bake Off illustrator Tom Hovey doesn’t eat cake A mural of Churchill in suspenders has been reprieved God is a black woman, says Destiny Deacon Brighton Pier stuck out in the Historic Photographer of the Year awards Armenia embraced Afrofuturism at the Yerevan Biennial In Denver, artists reinvented the mask … … while in Britain, Prints for Music is selling art to for the Stagehand Covid-19 Crew Relief fund Photographing polar bears is a perilous business Eric Tabuchi and Nelly Monnier made a photographic atlas of everyday France An Artists Walk makes passersby in to gallery-goers A strange metal monolith appeared in Utah In Cumbria, Pooley Bridge is worth crossing again Catherine Panebianco’s family slides belong to every story A giant portrait of Polish astronomer Copernicus will come to Britain Wonders of theatrical design were captured by Tristram Kenton Brian Kaplan fell in love with a different Cape Cod … … while Julius Shulman had an eye for California’s stunning architecture Masterpiece of the week At the Café de Châteaudun, c1869-71, by Edgar Degas This is not a portrait, or a satirical scene, or an illustration to a novel. It’s just two men observed in a cafe, poring over the newspaper. Degas is experimenting with a new art of modern life and a new idea of the artist. He himself is – we are invited to imagine – just another customer in the cafe, surreptitiously sketching the men from his own table. The poet and critic Charles Baudelaire urged the “painter of modern life” to explore the city as an idler and observer. Here Degas puts that theory into practice. • National Gallery, London. Don’t forget To follow us on Twitter: @GdnArtandDesign. Sign up to the Art Weekly newsletter If you don’t already receive our regular roundup of art and design news via email, please sign up here.